Salespeople Should Be Principled
 
In 1936 an unknown author, despite many frustrating years of writing and rejections, finally managed to get his manuscript taken up by a major publishing house.  That book became a classic in the pantheon of self-help books – “How to Win Friends and Influence People”.  Surprisingly, many people in sales have never read this work.  Plato, Socrates, Marcus Aurelius etc., were all around substantially prior to 1936 and we still plumb their insights. Dale Carnegie has definitely joined that circle of established thinkers, offering wisdom and valuable ideas.  His aim was to help all of us be better with each other, particularly in a business context.  He did this by laying down some principles, which will make us more successful in dealing with others, especially those people not like us.
 
Salespeople should definitely be friendly.  Ancient Chinese wisdom noted, “ a man who cannot smile should not open a shop”.   Here are nine principles for helping us all to become friendlier with our clients.
 
Become genuinely interested in other people
Our buyers are actually more interested in what we know about what they want, than in what we know about our product or service.  It is a common mistake though to be wrapped up in the features of our offering and lose focus on the person buying it and what they want.  At the extreme, transactional thinking means you don’t care about the individual, you only care about their money from the sale.  That is the hyper short career in sales option. 
 
For a long career, we better get busy really understanding our clients.  The key word in this principle is ”genuine”.  Having a correct kokorogamae or true intention, means we will be honestly focused on understanding the client so that we can really serve them and build a partnership.  We must be fully focused on their success, because wrapped up inside that outcome is our own success.
 
Talk in terms of the other person’s interests
Salespeople have a nasty habit of selective listening and selective conversation around what they want to talk about.  Their kokorogamae is centered around their interests and the buyer’s interests are secondary.  Sales talk is a misnomer - there is no sales talk.  There are well designed questions and there are carefully crafted explanations around solution delivery, which are tightly tied to what the buyer is interested in.  Questions uncover interests and with laser beam focus, that is the only thing we talk about. 
 
Sounds simple, but salespeople love to talk, they love the sound of their own voice and they become deaf to the client, often without even realising it.  Check yourself during your next client conversation – imagine we were to create a transcript of your words, would they be 100% addressed to the buyer’s interests.  If not, then stop blathering and start talking in terms of their interests.  By the way, Japanese buyers are rarely uncomfortable with silence, so don’t feel pressured to fill the conversation gaps with pap!
 
Be a good listener.  Encourage the other person to talk about themselves
Good listening means listening for what is not being said, as well as what we are hearing.  It means not pretending to be listening, while we secretly think of our soon to be unveiled brilliant response.  It means not getting sidetracked by a single piece of  key information, but taking in the whole of what is being conveyed.  It means listening with your eyes – reading the body language and checking it against the words being offered. 
 
Talkative salespeople miss so much key client information and then scratch their heads as to why they can’t be more successful in selling.  The client doesn’t have the sales handbook, where the questioning sequences are nicely aligned and arranged for maximum efficiency.  Instead the client conversation wanders all over the place, lurching from one topic to another, without any compunction. 
 
I am just like that as a buyer.  I have so many interests